Thursday, July 22, 2010

Capital Budget '10/11: linear trail discussion

The NHRs Luther Turmelle offers an article on the proposed linear trail expansion -- found in the second year of the capital budget. And here are the details of the TMs proposal:I'm fine with this sitting in the capital budget as a placeholder. But I don't see this going to referendum next year.

As for where the trail could be expanded... my preference would be to start at the Southington town line and head south. A TWL regular recently told me that Southington has basically reached the Cheshire line.

Tim White

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Drive down Peck Lane towards Southington and you will see rhar they are ready to pave.
I agree with you Tim, connect with that end first, that way, those of us in the north end of town will have use of a longer trail, thanks to Southington.
Not sure if this town is ready for that expenditure yet thoguh.

Tim White said...

I won't be suggesting the local taxpayers should be shelling out for this anytime soon.

I did ask the TM though to find out how far the existing grant money could extend the trail into Cheshire. In particular, I'm wondering about the bridge over 691.

Anonymous said...

I believe that is part of the trail that Southington did. It starts at West Johnson and goes north.

Anonymous said...

Let's see, the $950,000 fee for full time const adm, DOT contingency, and testing comes to about 21% of the total listed as $4,650,000. And that in addition to the $950,000, there is also $325,000 for survey, design, and permitting.

So out of the almost 5 million dollars proposed roughly 1.3 million or about 28% goes to what could be termed project management and survey activities.

One just has to wonder whether or not any of that money supports existing town staff or if 100% of the work is done by outside contractors with absolutely no town staff work products involved at all. Existing town staff are already in some budget somewhere else so including them in a request for capital would be interesting to say the least.

Maybe it's time to sharpen some town operated pencils and come up with a less weighty, more realistic and less top heavy initial estimate?